Miscellaneous Units in the Dunnigan System

Alan R. Arvold
This article will examine the remaining types of counters in PanzerBlitz and Panzer Leader. These will include the Anti-Aircraft artillery units, I Class vehicular units, flamethrower vehicles, engineering vehicles, and forts. same rule as with the other H Class units, the attack factor is based on the amount of high explosives that they can put into the target hex. This amount is based on the number of guns in the unit, multiplied by their sustained rate of fire. (The various bursting radiuses were negligible so they were not a factor in figuring out the final factor.) Now one would think that with the high rates of fire that AA weapons have, that they could put a lot of high explosives into a target hex, despite the small amount of high explosive that an individual round would have, and thus have a high attack factor. Well if these weapons could be fired non-stop they probably would. However, AA guns fire in short bursts in order to keep the weapons from overheating. Now single barreled guns fire in longer bursts than multi-barreled guns, but the multibarreled guns put out a hell of a lot more rounds in their shorter bursts than the single barreled ones do in their longer bursts. This is why the German Quad 20mm AA unit, with a total of twelve barrels in three mounts, has a far greater attack factor than two

Anti-Aircraft Units
Anti-Aircraft units come in two weapons classes, I Class and H Class, both of which come self-propelled and dismounted. Anti-aircraft units are kind of peculiar in PanzerBlitz because in the pure game, they have no aircraft to shoot at. Thus they are regulated to unit support roles against ground targets. However in Panzer Leader they have a dual role, both in ground support and antiaircraft defense. The attack factor depends on the Weapons Class of the unit. I Class AA units are based on the sustained rate of fire per weapon, multiplied by the number of weapons in the unit. Since I Class artillery units can not close assault, the attack factor is based solely on its anti-personnel firepower. H Class AA units on the other hand follow the

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Imaginative Strategist 10 September 2006

regular German 20mm AA units with only six barrels in individual mounts for each unit. The range factors were based on the maximum effective ranges of each of these weapons systems. However some got sort of short changed, like the Russian M-17 and American M-16, whose ranges were determined by the sighting mechanisms on the weapons system, not the maximum effective range.

supply has been hit. (Although the 88mm is an AT weapon in the game, the vast majority of the 88s used in that role were actually AA weapons, hence they receive the same defense factor as the other H Class AA weapons.) For self-propelled AA gun units, the defense factor is that of the carrier vehicle. The movement factors are of course, 0 for dismounted units and the movement factor of the vehicle for self-propelled units.

I Class Vehicular Units

I Class Vehicular Units are those units which are armed with either machine guns or light infantry weapons as their main armament. These would include armored cars, halftracks, light tanks, tankettes, and motorcycle units. (AntiAircraft I Class vehicles were discussed in the previous section.) These units can not use Close Assault Tactics but may use Overrun attacks against nonarmored units. Thus they are either used in support or reconnaissance roles. The attack factors are based on the main mix of weapons and their mountings. For machine gun armed units with their machine guns either mounted in turrets (armored cars and light tanks) or on pindles (halftracks and scout cars) the attack factor was set at 2. This was regardless of the number of machine guns a vehicle might have. Most had one or two machine guns although some German halftrack variants mounted as many as three. The rational for this was that

The defense factor the dismounted units was largely based on the weapons class of the unit in question. I Class weapons got a defense factor of 2 while H Class weapons (and the 88mm AT Gun) got a defense factor of 1. The reason for this was because antiaircraft weapons have to have large amounts of ammunition close by due to their high rate of fire and need to have it readily available. For I Class weapons this is not a problem as they only fire solid projectiles, but for H Class weapons which fire HE rounds, it can be a problem because all those HE rounds can cause a lot of damage to the guns and crews if the ammunition

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Imaginative Strategist 10 September 2006

these vehicles could lay down fire in any direction, either due to the turret or to multiple mounting pindles around the vehicle. The attack factor was limited to 2 to account for the limited amount of ammunition that could be carried in the vehicles, thus requiring them to fire in short bursts. For vehicles which had their machine guns mounted in the hull (tankettes and some armored personnel carriers) the attack factor was set at 1. This was to account for the limited traverse these machine guns have, usually only mounted on the front of the vehicle. While there are no vehicular units in PanzerBlitz which fit the criteria, there is the British Kangeroo APC in Panzer Leader. (One could argue that the Bren Gun Carriers, both British and Russian Lend Lease, should have an attack factor of 1 as their Bren light machine guns are mounted in the hull. But the Brens are not permanently affixed to the vehicles and could be lifted out of the mounts and used as a regular light machine gun by their gunners. Thus they could be fired by their gunners in any direction while still in the carrier, thereby rating an attack factor of 2.)

There is only one type of vehicular unit that uses infantry firepower as its main armament, that being the motorcycle unit. Because these units do not exist in

either the PanzerBlitz or Panzer Leader games, they had to be first created in Panzer Leader and then reverse engineered into PanzerBlitz. Thus the following rules were used in each game. The attack factor was based on the current rifle platoon or companys attack factor for each side. Remember that these were rifle units trained in a reconnaissance role and thus lost some of their combat effectiveness as infantry (in game terms they can not close assault). But this is due to their mission requirements, not because of an actual loss of abilities. Yes the infantry unit attack factor is a measure of its antitank ability, but given that it can project this firepower against non-armored targets to the maximum distance of its range factor, the corresponding motorcycle units were given the same ability against non-armored targets, in addition to being able to overrun them, which is more a function of the game mechanics than a true overrun ability. The French motorcycle units were a special exception as they had more

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Imaginative Strategist 10 September 2006

machine guns than their rifle units, thus they were given an attack of 2 to reflect this, as compared to their rifle units attack factor of 1. The range factors of the I Class vehicular units were based on a combination of the maximum effective range of the main armament and the mission requirements. For armored cars (and the Jeeps in Panzer Leader) this meant a range factor of 4 in PanzerBlitz and a range factor of 2* or 4 (depending on the caliber of the machine gun) in Panzer Leader as they frequently employed recon by fire techniques and needed the extra range to reflect this. For the halftracks it depended on more on mission requirements. For the Germans and Allies, they viewed their halftracks as a support vehicle so it would support its dismounted infantry unit with fire, thus a range factor of 4 in PanzerBlitz and a range factor of 2 in Panzer Leader. The Bren APC was exception in Panzer Leader because of its Bren machine gun and thus was given a range factor of 2* by Reed and crew. On the other hand the Russians viewed their halftracks and the Lend Lease Bren APC, as well as scout cars, as mere transport and so the machine guns were for self-defense only, hence a range factor of 1. Motorcycle units were penalized in range compared to their respective sides rifle units. This was due to the fact the longest range weapon in their arsenal, the machine gun, was mounted on side cars rather

than on tripods. This reduced their ranges as they were mounted on a less stable platform. Thus the motorcycle units were given a range factor that was two less than their respective sides rifle units in PanzerBlitz. In Panzer Leader, the motorcycle units were given a range factor of 2*, again to emphasize their reconnaissance missions. The Allied motorcycle and armored car units in Panzer Leader 1940 were an exception with a basic range factor of 2 (they were not as keen on recon-by-fire as the Germans were). The defense and movement factors were covered in another article so they will not be repeated here.

Flamethrower Vehicles
Flamethrower vehicles were introduced in Panzer Leader and later reversed engineered into PanzerBlitz. There are two types, small and medium. The small flamethrower vehicles were based on light tanks, halftracks, or APCs (which includes the British Badger). The medium flamethrower vehicles were

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Imaginative Strategist 10 September 2006

based on either medium or heavy tanks. The flamethrower vehicles were given an arbitrary Weapons Class of H for their approximate effect. Small flamethrower vehicles were given an attack factor of 30 and medium ones were given an attack factor of 40. This was based on the amount of fuel the vehicle carried for the flamethrower and on the average number of shots the flamethrower would make during a

Engineering Vehicles
Engineering vehicles are vehicles with special engineering functions. The functions themselves, minesweeping and bridge-laying, are a function of special rules and thus are not part of this article. Thus far, only the Allies have engineering vehicles, and thus these vehicles are only in Panzer Leader. The minesweeper unit, which uses the Sherman UKa counter values, comes in both American and British colors (on the Imaginative Strategist website at least). The bridge-layer, which was based on the Valentine tank, only has a defense and movement factor as it has no turret or weapons. Its speed is based on the Valentine tank. Its defense factor of 10 is based on the fact that it had extra armor plate welded to the front, considering its mission which it would most like have to do under fire, this made a lot of sense. Although they are not vehicles, the bridge counters are also engineer units. They have only one counter value, that being the defense factor. They come in two types, truck and tank bridges. The truck bridge has a defense factor of 23

given battle. All flamethrower units were given an arbitrary range factor of 1. This was being generous as most could not shoot a flame attack out past 100 meters. One would think that this would restrict the flamethrower vehicle to an overrun attack only type unit. However, the vehicle needed a stand off range to shoot at targets under cover (like town and woods hexes) and so was given a range of 1. The defense and movement factors were based on the original vehicle counters that the flamethrower units were based on. (The British Badger may seem a little faster than the Sherman UKa that it was based on but remember that the turret was removed, thus lessening the weight and therefore increasing the speed.)

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Imaginative Strategist 10 September 2006

and the tank bridge has a defense factor of 32. These counters were first introduced in PanzerBlitz as special counters in the Campaign Analysis book by Dunnigan. Randall Reed, seeing a good thing, included them in Panzer Leader also. There is not much to say about them except that they should be generic counters as everybody had them. Thankfully in the Imaginative Strategist website, all sides now have them in their own colors. area size (it would take more fire power to destroy them). In Panzer Leader the Germans are the only ones with Forts in the original game, but again in the Imaginative Strategist website, all sides have their own forts to use, all with a defense factor of 40. It should be noted that it was not until the game Arab-Israeli Wars that it was recognized that there should be two levels of defensive positions, those being the Improved Positions (which presents foxholes) and the Fort (which represents everything else), although many variants published before or after this, addressed this problem. ! Alan R. Arvold

Forts
Forts represent a variety of different defensive positions such as pillboxes, bunkers, trenches, and foxholes. Each of these individual types should warrant their own counter and defense factor as they certainly do in lower level games such as ASL. However, for simplicity, it was decided to lump them all together under one counter in PanzerBlitz. The original defense factor was 40 for both sides, but since the Russians had bigger units which occupied a greater area of ground, it was felt that their defensive positions would also, so their defense factor was increased to 50 to reflect the greater